Little Things
by LittleNapoleon
Summary: *A change of heart rewrite* One mistake, one discovery. Damon, after killing two people on one of his "binges" discovers a child that he promised he would never come back for. But, there's always a second chance for everything.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **So, this is basically one of my older fics, "A change of heart". I really like the idea of the story, I still do, but I hated the way I had written it. Some of you may argue with me, but this is my revised and rewritten version of that story. I call it "Small Things". There will be similar plots to the original, and completely new ones also. Anyway, drop me a review or PM and let me know what you think about this story so far. :)

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><p><strong>Small Things<strong>

**Prologue.**

She sits on the floor of her parents living room, her mother talking with her father as she sits and listens.

"She can't talk, Sarah." Mark says, thrusting his arm towards the little girl on the floor as she looked up at them with wide blue eyes. For a child that supposedly "stupid" and "slow", she looks hurt by that statement. But, there was a truth to that. At five years of age, Alicia hadn't uttered a word since birth. Her silence was something both her parents were used to, but that didn't change that fact that her mother worried about her brain development and her father worried about his pride.

"She can talk." Sarah snapped back at him, walking over to Alicia and scooped her up in her arms. "She just needs a little more work than children her age."

"Well, maybe if we paid more attention to her, she might be talking by now." Mark said, shooting his wife an angry look. Sarah shakes her head, Alicia watching the exchange with interest. She was intelligent, sure. She knew her ABC's and how to count, but she just couldn't pronounce the sounds properly. That, or she just didn't have the motivation to learn how to talk.

"We, meaning me, pay very hard attention to her. I'm the one working towards getting her to start talking, and you just stand there and belittle me at every turn." Sarah said, holding her daughter close. "You can sleep on the couch tonight."

With that, she turned and headed up the stairs with Alicia connecting her gaze with her father's. He looked hurt, surprisingly. Alicia loved her father, of course. And she was pretty sure that deep down he loved her also. He just didn't show it very much.

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><p>Sarah placed Alicia down on her bed, pulling the blanket over her and pressed a kiss to her forehead.<p>

"Are you alright? Do you need anything?" she asked, Alicia shaking her head 'no'. Sarah smiled and patted her head.

"Alright, sweetheart. I'll see you in the morning." she said, walking towards the door and flicked off the light. She closed the door with a light 'click', the room falling into darkness.

Sadly, unknown to Alicia and her family, nobody noticed the man standing outside, leaning against the oak tree, listening to the whole exchange.

Nobody really saw what was coming.


	2. Chapter 1: Found

**A/N: **Thank you all for the reviews/favourites/alerts, I'm happy that people are still willing to read this story. :) So, this story is going to be AU for a few chapters, but I might start to tie the story into the show's plots. We'll see. Anyway, drop me a review and tell me what you think!

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><p><strong>Small Things<strong>

**Chapter One: Found.**

Alicia wasn't a heavy sleeper, her mind always buzzing with images and thoughts. But, she was about to drop into a deep sleep, thinking of fields of green and a sky of light blue. But, a sound pulled her out of her thoughts. She thought she heard it, the sounds of struggle. She was about to roll back onto her side and pull the blanket up to her chin to hope that the noises would stop, that she was imagining them, but she heard it again.

_Thud. _

She sat up, staring at her closed door as she slowly pulled the covers off of her and padded carefully over to the door, hoping that she wouldn't alert the thing or person on the other side of the door to her presence. She placed a hand on the door knob, slowly turning it and the door opened with a light click. She placed a small hand on the door and pushed the door open slowly, planning to go her mother's room to wake her. But, she ended up standing at the banister of the stairs and watched the scene before her.

Her father's body was laying on the floor, limp like an abandoned puppet. There was a liquid redness pooling around his head, and Alicia knew that something was very wrong. She watched as the black haired stranger dropped her mother onto the floor, her neck twisting at an odd angle. Alicia jumped back from the banister as the man's gaze locked with hers.

He was a monster, the whites of his eyes blood red with black veins surrounding his eyes. His gaze was intense, hard. There was a bit of surprise in there, also, but it disappeared quickly as Alicia turned to run down the hall.

The man was in front of her suddenly, as if he had been there all along. His hands gripped onto her shoulders tightly, keeping her from backing away and running in the other direction. Alicia screamed, flailing and hitting the strangers arms as he bent down to her eye level.

Alicia's met a pair of blue eyes that seemed so familiar to her. They were almost the exact same shade as her own, and she found herself just staring at the man in front of her. She watched, frightened, as his pupils dilated. He started talking to her then, her ears focused solely on his voice, and her eyes on his.

"You are calm." he said, an unexplained calmness washing over her, making her tense arms and legs relax. Her fingers loosened, her hands dropping to rest at her sides. Alicia's blue eyes never leaving his.

"You are not going to remember anything that happened here, your parents left you and that's all you know."

_My parents left me..._Alicia thought to herself, she could see her mother leaving the house, her father out in front of her. She could see her mother glance back at her with an expressionless stare before she closed the door behind her, leaving Alicia standing in the room by herself.

"You want to sleep." Alicia could hear his voice break through her "memory", she suddenly felt really tired. Alicia's eyes drooped, the last thing she saw being the man's eyes before she saw blackness.

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><p>Damon let the child fall against his shoulder, her cheek pressed against the black fabric of his shirt. It would look like she trustingly rested her head against his shoulder, though it wasn't really <em>real<em> trust. Damon picked up the girl, letting her rest on his hip as he held a hand in her black hair, keeping her cheek pressed against his shirt.

A part of him, the part that he usually pushed to the back of his head, told him that he had promised not to come back for her. That he should place her down on her bed and let the police find her in the morning. But, the "now" Damon was focused on the fact that she was resting against his shoulder and that he wanted to keep her this time.

"Come on, Alicia." he muttered, adjusting her slightly. "Dad's got you."

He headed down the stairs to the mess of bodies and blood on the floor, Damon giving the man and woman there a fleeting glance as he headed out into the night with Alicia in his arms.

He reached the boarding house about an hour later, Alicia sleeping peacefully in his arms. He used his back to push open the front door, using his free hand to close it shut again. He could hear his brother talking with Elena in the next room, the conversation stopping, Damon knowing that they had heard him. He walked forwards with a quick stride, not really caring if they saw Alicia in his arms.

His brother stood quickly once he saw what was in his arms, his eyes widening slightly. Stefan walked forwards, giving Damon one of his brooding looks.

"Damon?" Stefan asked, Damon pausing with raised eyebrows. Elena came to stand beside Stefan, a confused look on her face. That quickly changed to one of alarm once she saw what he was holding.

"Is that a child?" she asked, Damon glancing down at the sleeping girl in his arms before he looked up at Elena with one of his smirks.

"Yes she is." he said, sounding like it was a normal occurrence for him to bring abandoned children home with him.

"Is..." Elena paused, sounding like she was uncertain to ask the next part of her question. "Is she...dead?"

"No!" Damon said, trying to sound offended. "You think I would kill an innocent child? I would never."

"Damon." Stefan said in his warning tone, "I don't want to know why you wanted to kidnap a kid from her bed in the middle of the night, but you need to return her back."

"A little to late for that." Damon said, "I might have killed her parents."

"What?" Elena asked, eyes wide. "Damon-"

"-she's not..." Stefan started, looking at his brother with a uncertain look. "She's not Alicia, is she?" He saw the look on his brother face, Stefan's voice becoming hard. "_You didn't._"

Damon's mouth lifted up into a smirk, "_I did._" He mocked, looking down at the child in his arms.

Stefan gave him an aspirated look, "Damon, you said you weren't going to go back for her. You made a promise."

"Yeah, well, I had to take her back. Her father was planning something, and I honestly thought that I couldn't have shown up at a better time."

"What's going on?" Elena asked, looking lost. Stefan looked at her, opening his mouth when Damon spoke up.

"Elena, this girl in my arms, her name is Alicia." he said, Elena's eyes moving down towards the sleeping girl in his arms.

"I'm her father." Damon finished.


	3. Chapter 2: Child Lost

**A/N: Once again, thank you all for the reviews/favourites/alerts. I hope you all like this next chapter! I'm sorry it took so long, and I thought the ending fell a little flat, but I hope things will get rolling soon.**

**Little Things**

**Chapter Two: Child Lost.**

The moment that the word "father" left Damon's mouth, there was a bit of a pregnant pause between Stefan and Elena. Stefan had known this already, but he was still surprised that Damon had went back on his word and brought Alicia back with him. Elena was just shocked that Damon was able to father a child, being a vampire and all.

Then, the both of them started firing off questions at him. Stefan asking about Alicia's parents and about his motives. Elena asking about how Alicia even existed and how a vampire could be able to procreate.

Damon let out a low groan, raising his voice slightly. "Hold on a minute. One at a time."

Stefan shook his head, "You killed her parents, didn't you? Damon, do you know what kind of commotion this will cause?"

"Sarah is a liar, and Mark would no sooner get rid of Alicia. I think I did Alicia a service, and I can just

compel or lie to people who ask about her."

"Do you even know what kind of impact this will have on her?" Elena snapped, "Damon, she looks to be no older than five or six."

"She won't remember the killing. I compelled her so that she thinks that her parents walked out on her, I don't think she will be able to remember me killing them for a long time." Damon replied with a shrug. He had all of this under control, Elena and Stefan were overreacting. Well, maybe they were right about a few things, but Damon wasn't about to admit that to them.

"Did you know about her, Stefan?" Elena asked, turning to her boyfriend. Stefan nodded his head, glancing at Elena.

"I met her when Damon and Sarah were still together. But, Damon promised that he wasn't going to bring Alicia into his lifestyle," he looked at his brother, "you promised that you would leave them alone, why the change of plans?"

Damon sighed, "I feel it's about time that I took my daughter back, Stefan. So, I did just that."

"Are you even ready to take on the role of being a parent?" Elena asked, "I mean, you'll have to give up the woman and drinking. Put her before yourself-"

"-I was her father for the first two years of her life, Elena." Damon said, "I do know what a job like this involves. So, you can skip the lecture and orientation."

"This is not a good idea, Damon," Stefan stated, "I don't know how much more I can stress this, but you just _kidnapped_ a five year old girl."

Damon smirked, "Kidnapped is such a harsh word. I like to think of collecting something that is mine."

"But, she's not just some item that you let someone borrow, she's a person. A _child_. You just don't know when to leave things alone, do you?"

"Don't be a prude, Stefan," Damon muttered, adjusting the sleeping child in his arms so her head was resting on his shoulder again. "I'm keeping her, and you two have no say in this. Just watch, I'll prove you both wrong."

Stefan only shook his head, watching his brother walk up the stairs. Elena watched him go, also, before looking back at Stefan.

"He's going to ruin that poor girl," she muttered, "I can't believe him."

"There's nothing we can really do about it right now," Stefan said, "but, we'll have to wait until Damon comes to terms about the mistake he's making."

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><p>Alicia whimpered slightly, awareness coming back to her slowly. She thought that she was waking up in her bedroom for a few seconds, but it felt wrong. It was too bright and it even smelt different. Alicia sat up quickly, her eyes taking in the room around her.<p>

She remembered that her mother and father left her, though she had no idea why. But, how did she get here?

She slowly lowered herself down onto the floor, looking around the room carefully. She needed to go home, or at least somewhere that had people she knew. She was in a strange place, with strangers, and her mother had told her not to trust people she didn't know.

Alicia jumped when she heard the floor creek behind where she was standing, her head turning around quickly to look at the stranger. She frowned, staring up at him. Alicia knew that she had to tell him to go away, to leave her alone, but she just couldn't find the words. Even if she could speak them, she would be too scared to do so.

"You're finally up." Damon stated, looking down at the child. "It was getting pretty boring around the house."

Alicia just stared up at him, her blue eyes wide.

"No need to be shy," Damon said, "I'm not going to hurt you."

More silence.

Damon could see that Alicia feared him, didn't remember him. Of course she didn't, he expected that. But, he thought she would at least have a few words for him. He bent down to her level, Alicia instinctively backing up a few paces.

"Can you talk, Alicia?" he asked, watching as the girl just stared at him. Then, she slowly shook her head, her arms wrapped around herself.

"You can't talk?" Damon asked, looking her up and down. Alicia hung her head, as if she were ashamed. She probably was.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Damon said, "we'll just have to teach you."

Alicia seemed to brighten at that, a slight smile crossing her face. Still, she seemed uncertain of him. Damon stood to his full height again, walking towards the door. She watched him go for a few seconds, Alicia just standing there.

Damon glanced back at her, then opened the door. "Come on. Let's go meet Stefan."

Alicia stood in spot for a few moments, then walked towards him. She followed him down the stairs, the house was big, a little dark though. She wouldn't mind exploring it once Damon lets her do so.

She followed Damon down to where a man with brown hair was sitting, he glanced up at Damon for a few seconds before looking down at her. Alicia stared at him, he looked familiar, too. Both him and Damon did.

"Alicia, this is Stefan." Damon said, looking down at her. Alicia stared up at him, then at Stefan.

"She's a quiet one." Stefan commented, trying to give Alicia a comforting smile. But, all these two people were strangers to her, and she wasn't supposed to be with them.

"She can't talk." Damon said, looking down at her and placed a hand on her head. Alicia moved away from him, not wanting to touch him. Damon looked at her, a little confused by her antics. Stefan chuckled, Damon giving him a look.

"Is she mute?" Stefan asked, watching as Damon looked back down at Alicia.

"I don't think so." Damon said, Alicia looking around the room now. She seemed to have a rather short attention span.

Stefan nodded, looking at Damon. "She doesn't know how to talk."

"Nope," Damon said, "though all she really needs is someone to teach her."

Alicia blinked up at him, a little thrilled that he was going to teach her. And she was starting to like the house, but she wanted her mom and dad. She wanted to go home.

She needed someone to take her back home. But, her parents weren't there, and that confused her so much. They loved her, didn't they? Her mom had said so many times that she did, she even said that her father did, too. But, they just left her?

Did Damon find her? She remembered being sleepy, so sleepy. Someone picking her up. Maybe Damon had found her. She glanced up at him as he was talking with Stefan.

Maybe she could trust him...


End file.
